Beverly Johnson Wesling: Her love of history was rooted in wartime service

Beverly Wesling, 88, of Tavares served in the U.S. Navy as a pharmacist… (Courtesy of Wesling family,…)

4:33 p.m. EST, May 26, 2012|

By Eloísa Ruano González, Orlando Sentinel

Beverly Wesling walked away from nurses' training the day she was assigned to a maternity ward. The experience had her convinced that she would never want kids.

She eventually did have children, however — three of them. And she did return to the medical field, joining the U.S. Navy as a pharmacist's mate.

For a few years at a military hospital in Washington, Wesling cared for men who returned home wounded. She was honorably discharged when she became pregnant with her first child.

"It was wartime, and she wanted to do something for her country," said her middle child, Carol Hart, 63. "And she did her part."

Beverly Johnson Wesling of Tavares died May 14 after a fall. She was 88.

Wesling, along with her late husband, Bill Wesling Jr., a Navy veteran and wildlife artist, inspired one of her grandsons to join the Air Force. Her service in the Navy was "truly where her patriotism and love for history and her country all stemmed from," said Hart, who lives in Gainesville.

The New Hampshire native was also a genealogist and history whiz who could recite the Gettysburg Address.

"The first thing I learned about her was that her ancestors came on the Mayflower," said Phyllis McDonnell, a friend and member of the Lake County WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) Unit 74. McDonnell, who served as a Navy aircraft mechanic during the war, met Wesling in the WAVES group in the 1980s.

McDonnell said genealogy "gave her access to other things she enjoyed, like the Daughters of the American Revolution."

Wesling, also a member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, traced her roots back to an English leather maker, Stephen Hopkins (1585-1644). Hopkins, one of four men who first came ashore to investigate the land, made the voyage with his wife and three children. A fourth was born at sea.

Hopkins originally came to the New World in 1609 and was shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda before sailing to Jamestown, Va., Wesling told the Sentinel in 1993. He returned to Europe after nearly a year to fetch his family. Hopkins acted as interpreter to the Indians and became friends with the chiefs, who, along with 90 tribe members, joined the settlers for the first Thanksgiving.

"She was interested in history because it wasn't just a story. It was real. They were people that walked on Earth and [built] our country," Hart said.

Wesling and her husband, who died 22 years ago, made several trips to England, where they made rubbings of her ancestors' gravestones. She also liked to comb genealogical records and helped other people research their family histories.

Hart said her mother had a great appreciation of the Cherokee people, who passed down stories of their ancestors. Wesling did the same, sharing her family's stories with her kids and grandkids.

"Their blood is running in our blood. They are the ones who made us — our country — who we are today," Hart said. "She instilled in her children and grandchildren the pride to be an American."

Wesling also is survived by daughters Beverly J. Seitz and Christine A. Dunn; five grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.